Rory Sweeney is an artist who has established himself as a key figure in the Dublin underground scene. He is prolific within the creative community of the city, a believer in diligently showing up. Two projects rarely sound the same, with each drawing upon a seemingly endless supply of influences. He was kind enough to sit down with us to discuss his creative process and upcoming projects.

C: FTGT magazine, we are here with…

R: Rory Sweeney.

C: Where are you from?

R: I’m from Dublin.

C: What does making a song look like for you?

R: It changes every time. I think one thing that keeps me making music is that I don’t really repeat the same way of doing a thing; but usually, it’s a sound collage. I put together loads of sounds and then when you listen to all of them on top of each other, your ideas start to form out of that. I know a lot of people like to make music that way as well, I know Mount Kimbie talked about doing it before.

Usually it [a song] comes about with a “happy accidents” kind of situation. These days a lot of my writing gets done when someone [has] asked me to get in the studio for something and I’ll just write like 5 ideas in 2 hours, really short ones. Then, because I’m just so blindly trying to knock something out, happy accidents come about and good things that I might develop further also come to fruition.

C: How has music impacted your life?

R: It's great. It's my entire love and most of my community, and the only thing that makes me truly happy with no downsides.

C: What was your most challenging production experience?

R: My most challenging production experience was probably making my latest album. But if I were to look outside of that, Pippa Molony’s “Hungry Ghost” was really difficult just because there’s so much sound in it. We took some real risks.

There’s a song on the album [Hungry Ghost] that has no reverb and in an album like that you're a lunatic to not use reverb. But as an experiment, we decided to go without. We had the goal of having every song push the boat out as much as possible. It was really difficult but really rewarding and I learned so much about how to make music and what I liked.

The really difficult stuff is the stuff that I fucking love. So yeah my own album and Pippa Molony’s album, and also just working with Pippa generally. I think we work really well together, that’s why things take so much effort and so much time, but they turn out better for it.

C: Who is Carlos Danger? Where does Carlos Danger end and Rory Sweeney begin?

R: Someone drunkenly got really sniffy with me about that name but I was like “you just have to google it”. Carlos Danger is the alias of Anthony Weiner. He was a politician in New York who probably would have been president of the States if this hadn’t happened.

Essentially, he’s a really charismatic politician in New York. He was super connected with Bill Clinton. His wife, Huma, was Clinton's right-hand person. Then he got caught up in loads of sexting scandals. The second time he got caught up in a sexting scandal, he was about to get re-elected as the Mayor of New York. The name he was using while sexting people was Carlos Danger which is hilarious because he’s not Hispanic. So I always thought it was really funny and always wanted to put out a record under that name.

The reason I use it is because I don’t like putting out “nostalgic music”. I think all music is super duper nostalgic and derivative especially for times people didn’t live through. Not that that matters a whole lot but for example, everyone is trying to do UK Garage and Y2K again. It’s been the case maybe for like 20 years I feel - Mark Fisher wrote a lot about that.

C: What are you listening to at the moment and is it similar to what you're making?

R: At the moment I’m listening to loads of this Eartheater album called “RIP Chrysalis”. I’ve been finding that really inspiring because it's got a lot of really weird electro-acoustic stuff. There’s nice live instruments that she’s playing but also crazy sub-bass and loads of samples. She’s just amazing. The Eartheater album is kind of more similar to what I’ve been doing.

I’ve been listening to a lot of my mate Apu Nanu’s music as well as this band called LEYA who are this weird classical band from New York. I've also been listening to a lot of Oklou’s new album “Choke Enough”.

Right now, because I'm just about to finish an album, I'm listening to a lot of stuff that will probably be reference music.

C: Is Dublin a good place to be an artist and can it offer the same opportunities as a bigger city like London? I get the impression amongst artists that they feel they must relocate for their career.

R: I think it's much easier to stick out as an artist in Ireland. In my view, there’s not as much music coming out [in Ireland] compared to elsewhere and even less “good music” (outside of folk and trad) without being disrespectful or anything like that. I feel it’s a population thing. I think it's much easier to make it, or at least get work as artist in Dublin.

I was in London recently and I don’t particularly like it over there. Being there, I was constantly in good studio sessions and meeting really talented people so I completely understand why people are drawn to it but I think there’s such a miserable quality of life in London.

I try to think a lot about the outcomes you derive from art and the outcomes I want from it. I aim to be in a position where I’m making songs and meeting new people through music. I think Dublin is fine for that and I’m able to work part-time alongside music. If you’re from Dublin as an artist, it’s probably easier to get by in here.

I lived in Manchester for a while and I had good connections going over there. I had good people to make music with, but you have to spend years embedding yourself in a community. I think becoming intertwined with the music and creative community at large is easier to do in Dublin, people will book you much quicker. In Manchester by contrast, just in my experience, you kind of have to be around [the community] for ages before you get booked.

I’m personally of the opinion that it’s best to stay in Dublin but that said, it is difficult, especially if you’re working. Like I’ve said, I’m personally against going over there [to London] especially because of just how horrendous it is politically right now and much worse it will get if/when Reform gets in. I don’t know if I was living there, I certainly wouldn’t be making any plans to stay for a long time.

C: What was it like working with Kojaque?

R: I was never in the room with him. He just did a remix of it [Men on a Mission] without actually telling any of us. He showed up and gave it to Curtisy, and Ahmed [Ahmed, with Love] in London when they were playing a show for Kean Kavanagh and that was it then. I’ve never been in the studio with him but some of my mates have. Bricknasty was in the studio with him and Curtisy was recently but I can’t really speak to it too much.

C: You frequently collaborate with other artists such as “Curtisy”, “Ahmed, With Love”, and “E THE ARTIST”. How do you find the artists you would enjoy to work with?

R: Mostly through mates of mates. I rarely am working with people I don’t really know. The only recent person I’ve worked with [who I didn’t know] would be Aoife Wolf. I was always a huge fan of her music and thankfully we’ve become good friends since; it feels very comfortable to make music with her. That said, it is good to go out there and meet new people. I'm working with Gemma Dunleavey and Cosha at the moment which I’ve been really enjoying.

These days I'm less concerned with any career stuff, I’m really enjoying making tunes with my friends. The money isn’t good or anything. I feel a lot stuff that makes you money is really soul destroying and horrible. It’s often consists of “art-washing” for major corporations but it’s what you have to do if you want to make some real money.

I knew Ahmed for years, who knew him through Pippa [Molony], and we started making music together. Then he and I went to Curtisy’s house maybe 4 years ago, and through Curtisy I met E THE ARTIST just through being in the studio. Julia Louise Knifefist made art for a rave I ran when I was 18 or 19, so that’s how we met and started making music together.

I think people get it so wrong when they’re making music. In my experience, people refuse to work with, for example, rappers who are from their area which is stupid and egotistical. Curtisy and I were talking about it the other day. Ahmed, him, and I made a record together the first time we met up. But now that we’ve been mates for such a long time and have been around each other so much, I feel we’ve all greatly improved as artists and are much more interested in mad stuff because we’ve been showing each other all this kind of music. We were just saying that whenever we do end up putting out this record it has to be so much better because we’ve all improved so much together. Community is the only good thing that can really come out of art to be real with you.

C: What can you say about the Bitten Twice Collective?

R: Freak music. Freak music for crazy people. It came about as a result of Julia Louise Knifefist and I being obsessed with Fomorian Vein and felt we just had to have to make something with them because they’re the best thing ever! Then from that we decided to create a collective. Our motivation behind it was that we didn’t like a lot of the music coming out of Dublin, especially dance music and to push back against it, we wanted to do the most horrible, out-there, insane thing ever.

I ended up being really proud of it and it has turned into an important part of my life; it’s informed so much of how I make art. I just love doing it and love [working with] Knifefist, Jake, and Fomorian Vein, they are just my favourite people. I love them to bits. E THE ARTIST is now part of Bitten Twice and yeah it’s my favourite thing that I’ve ever been involved in, it’s fucking great!

C: Is it named after the machine girl song?

R: Yep, it is named after the machine girl song.

C: Which is crazy because you guys supported Machine Girl?

R: Yeah we supported Machine Girl, but Machine Girl named their song “Bitten Twice” after this Irish punk band in the 80’s who also had a song called “Bitten Twice” which is crazy.

C: Last question, can you leave us with some final words, a quote or anything you want?

R: Stay weird.

Rory’s latest single “Entrance Places” with Saoirse Miller, RÓIS, and Risteárd Ó hAodha is out now on all platforms.

FTGT Interview: Rory Sweeney

FTGT: New music 11/08/25